Responding to the progress report on the Windrush Scandal, published by independent expert Wendy Williams who was appointed to advise the Home Office, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Home Affairs Alistair Carmichael MP said: “The Conservative Government’s abysmal response to the Windrush Scandal is now a scandal all of its own.
“Priti Patel has utterly failed to get a grip on the broken immigration system or scrap the hostile environment that saw innocent people wrongly detained, deported and made homeless. In fact, she is only making things worse. Her failure to sort out the Home Office is clear from the appalling chaos and delays facing Ukrainian refugees, even as families across the UK want to welcome them with open arms.
“Conservative Ministers must finally admit their mistake and take the Compensation Scheme out of the hands of the discredited Home Office. It should never have been left to the Home Office – which caused so much harm in the first place – to put things right. That’s why Liberal Democrats called for the compensation scheme to be fully independent from the start. Then we can finally get on with righting the wrongs done to the Windrush Generation and restoring public confidence in the immigration system.”
The update on the Windrush report is available from the Gov.uk website
It states: “the department is currently unable to progress a significant part of its transformation programme, which risks hampering its efforts to become a learning organisation and an exemplar of good public administration.”